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Talk:Muppets vs Creatures
What about The Hoobs? I think that The Hoobs began airing in 2001, but I don't know that they were ever called Muppets. Yet they deserve mention in the "Henson Company Puppets" section. What to do?— Tom (talk) 23:33, December 24, 2009 (UTC) :They're Muppets (by the definitions established in the old discussion below, and we explain it clearly in the article, even if the credits never called them such), so feel free to add them to the page. "Henson Company Puppets" only applies to things which are neither Muppets nor Creatures, specifically puppets (not motion capture digital things) from post-2004, after the sale of the word "Muppet" (since prior to that, it was a given that all the characters listed were made by the Jim Henson Company; even after Sesame Workshop bought whole ownership of the Sesame crowd, they kept up the relationship as far as puppet building and so on). This is basically a guideline to how Muppet Wiki defines things, and as a result, this page isn't always updated, so if you feel like there are any *vital* ommissions (for Creatures, for example, we're obviously not listing every movie with Creatures, just some major examples produced by the Jim Henson Company), go ahead and add them. The list is designed as a practical guideline to see how things are or should be categorized, not an all inclusive index. Hoobs was just omitted since we didn't even have an article on it at the time, and nobody bothered to fill it in later. I'll add it now. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 03:54, December 25, 2009 (UTC) What makes a Muppet now? After discussion with Puppet Up! the definition of "Muppet" needs re-working to explain the designation of what constitutes a Muppet now. When we started this page (and this whole debate) there were two options a) Muppet b) Creature. Everything is divided by the show or production but in addition we have the catch all Muppet Characters category as well - which is for all Muppet characters. But what is a Muppet character? We debated and decided that the symbolic puppets made by Henson was a Muppet (Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, Sesame Street…). However now only Disney (The Muppet Holding Co.) and Sesame Workshop can apply the title to new creations so any "Muppet"-type characters made by Henson after the Disney deal are no longer Muppets -- they are just good old fashion puppets because the term Muppet is not (and legally can not be) used on them. However if a traditional symbolic puppet was built by Henson pre-2004 and the term Muppet was never associated with the "universe" (I think Faffner Hall, Construction Site, Wubbulous World, and a few others from the '90s never used the term "Muppet", "Muppets", "Muppeteer", etc) but they are still considered Muppets. It's not just the official (or legal) billing. As it stands now, it is the character's artistic style/symbolic meaning, and (and that's a big "and") it also relies on the time frame of creation. Puppet up characters (with the exception of recycled characters established as Muppets elsewhere) are not Muppets. They are just Henson Company puppets. Same thing goes for Late Night Buffet or any other Muppet-like creations Henson may make down the line. However established universes still hold the same as they were pre-Disney. The Fraggle Rock characters are Muppets (they are even billed as such). When (or if) the Fraggle Rock Movie gets made any new Fraggle characters introduced, would be Muppets just like the rest of the universe. So as it stands now: :Created Pre-2004 :*Any puppet built by Henson is a Muppet. :*Any realistic animatronic character built by Henson is a creature. :Created Post-2004 :*Any puppet built by The Muppet Holding Company, JHC for Sesame Workshop, or is part of a Muppet universe established prior to 2004 is a Muppet. :*Any other puppet built by Henson is just a Henson Company puppet. :*Any realistic animatronic character built by Henson is still a creature. :And for the record: :*Dinosaurs were voted as creatures :*Faffner Hall & Mother Goose Stories were decided as Muppets. Is this the way we like it? Do we need to reassess any situations or definitions? Or do we want Muppets to only be from the universes actually billed as "Muppets" (regardless of time-frame)? Thoughts? -- Brad D. (talk) 00:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC) ::No, I think your run-down is accurate and I agree with it. — Scott (talk) 00:31, 17 October 2006 (UTC) :::So do I. I don't think we really want to change anything, and any gray areas on other Muppet-owned-era productions, like Construction Site or Dog (dinosaur), can be decided based on the previously voted upon criteria of symbolic versus realistic. But definitely the new text does help the Puppet Up! matter (which was discussed, but the final decision wasn't really made publicly obvious, explained mostly in isolated user and article talk pages). And yeah, if the Fraggle Rock movie actually does come to pass (which I'm doubtful of), any new characters would still be Muppets. The "universe" issue is interesting, since in The Muppet Christmas Carol, for example, The Ghost of Christmas Present was built by the Creature Shop and has a more Creature aesthetic (as does the Ghost of Christmas Past), but for convenience sake, it generally makes more sense to categorize them as Muppets (just as we decided, inclusion in "Organization of Muppet Dogs" aside, Dog is still a Creature). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 00:40, 17 October 2006 (UTC) ::::Good, I thought it was accurate, but wanted to get some validation on the change. When we created the Muppet vs Creature definitions we didn't have any other Henson Company puppets to deal with... but now that Henson can't create any "Muppet" universes yet they are still making characters that are clearly not "creatures" we have to find a way to deal with them. And I just want to make sure we're all clear what to do with them. ::::Do we need a catch-all "Henson Company Puppets" category (like "Muppet Characters" and "Creatures") for these post-"Disney Deal" Muppet-like creations (well, maybe not right now as the only pages we have are the Puppet Up! character..but just a thought for the future once more Henson puppets pop-up). user:BradFraggle 00:47, 17 October 2006 (UTC) :::::Yeah, I think I'd wait until we get info and images on more characters (though we do have a few Late Night Buffet character redlinks right now). And as discussed earlier, there's international Sesame Street characters like Leonie Löwenherz and Uli Von Bödefeld, who never were built by Henson and are not Muppets (and there's probably a couple others who slipped through the cracks, and we'll find in our own time), but I'm not sure if we need a seperate category for those either (and, in fact, I should probably add some text about that on this page, i.e. "international co-productions occasionally utilized puppet characters built by other companies, interacting with the Muppet Workshop designed characters"). The important thing is that it's clear how and why we're categorizing things. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 00:52, 17 October 2006 (UTC) Faffner Hall Did we decide Faffner Hall characters were not Muppets? User:Deanmo19 took them out of the Muppet Characters category. Should we have a vote? -- Scott Scarecroe 15:05, 31 January 2006 (UTC) : I thought we were under the consensus that the Faffner Hall (and Mother Goose Stories) characters were in fact Muppets, but if there is enough discrepancy then maybe we should vote. ''-- BradFraggle 20:20, 31 January 2006 (UTC)'' Muppets vs Creatures Perfect. GrantHarding 23:28, 21 January 2006 (UTC) Muppets Vs. Creature info Hi! I'd like to add some info about Muppet vs. Creature post-Disney sale. The Henson Company did retain ownership of certain properties like Fraggle Rock and Dog City, and are legally bound to refer to their property as clearly non-Muppet. Only Disney-owned material may be referred to as "Muppet". It may be too picky-legal for the site to worry about (unless it starts to get into the Copyright area, and Disney is starting to be very vocal about it), but it wouldn't be too big of a deal on this page to list the retained properties under the Henson heading. I could help with specifics if you all decide that is a viable option. Julianne 02/07/07